1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic apparatus for memorizing information entered from input means.
2. Description of the Prior Art
With the recent remarkable reduction in power consumption of large-scale integrated circuits (LSI) employed in the electronic desk-top calculators or electronic memories, it has been rendered possible, as already disclosed in the U.S. Pat. No. 4,117,542, to store the results of calculations or the necessary data even in portable electronic apparatus. However such electronic apparatus are associated with the following drawbacks.
Such electronic apparatus, for example when carried in a pocket, may cause unexpected actuation of the keys by vibration or by contact with other items, which may result in the erasure of the memorized information.
Also with the recent compactization of electronic apparatus, particularly small desk-top calculators, there is generally employed a so-called second function input method wherein each input key represents plural meanings one of which is selected by the actuation of another particular key. For example a key standing for "sin" and "arcsin" is made to represent the latter after the actuation of another particular key. Also in a typewriter the number of keys is limited by differentiating, by means of a shift key, alphabets from numerals, or upper-case letters from lower-case letters.
In such input method, however, for entering paired data consisting of alphabets and numerals, for example data "SADO 0888" representing a person's name and his telephone number, it becomes necessary to actuate a specifying key for designating the meaning of each data entry key, and also to actuate the keys to designate the location of data storage in the memory.
Also such memories are usually designed to store multiple pairs of data, such as personal names and telephone numbers, and to release, upon input of either one of the paired data, the other one or both of the paired data as the output. In such apparatus the user tends to forget the content of the memorized data with the lapse of time and feels uneasy as to whether the necessary data are actually memorized in the apparatus.
Also in case of retrieving a person's name or a word by key input operation, it often happens that a memorized word cannot be located due to erroneous, excessive or deficient key actuations. For example a keyword "HASHI" stored in the memory cannot be retrieved if the input keys are deficiently actuated in the order of "H", "A", "S" and "I". Also a keyword "CANON" stored in the memory cannot be retrieved if the input keys are excessively actuated in the order of "C", "A", "N", "N", "O" and "N".
Also the electrically memorized paired data, for example a name of a merchandise and a unit price thereof, may require correction either at the entry thereof due to an error found in the entry operation or afterwords at a read-out due to an error found later. Correction keys, if provided for these cases, will not only complicate the structue of the apparatus but also may result in unexpected corrections due to possible erroneous actuations of said correction keys.
Also since the number of digits displayable on an electronic apparatus is generally limited in consideration of compactness, portability and cost, data of a digit number larger than the displayable digit number are usually not displayed or only partially displayed.